~ Author

Tag Archives: writer

Days ago I was reading an article discussing the dissatisfaction of several fans of the book, “Hunger Games”, with the casting of African-American actors/actresses in the recently released hit film based on the book as some of their favorite characters:

This along with all of the racially charged current events that are happening in America right now made me think of the ways that race has played into my actual life as a new author and how it concerns the life of my characters themselves.

An African-American friend of mine was reading my book and must have read some minor implication as to the race of a character when she turns and looks at me with an expression of total shock and says,

Like this:

All of my adult life I have wanted to write a novel, but never had the amount of courage and/or motivation in the right amounts, at the right times to move the project forward. As I brought in the 2011 New Year, I made a resolution to write a book as I had done several times in the past, but this particular year, I decided to get some outside assistance. I began surfing the net with terms such as “writing a novel” and I found some websites that motivated me to put the pen to the page…and keep it there.

The first and most important thing that I learned on day one from the following website was that, “writers write”, which sadly enough is not as obvious an idea as it seems.

This reminded me of a hilarious dialogue between two of the characters on my favorite television show, which went something like…

Blanch: I have writer’s block

Dorothy: Well tell me, what have you written so far?

Blanch: Nothing, that’s how I know I have writers block.

Dorothy: You have to have written to have writer’s block…or else we all have it.

– The Golden Girls

I knew that I did not have writer’s block because I had written several things in the past, in high school and college and I was full of imagination, but I had not written anything recently and it was not for lack of ideas, it was simply a lack of motivation.

I was one of those “writers” who had to feel inspired in order to write something, but this phrase made me realize that was a copout and if I was truly a writer I had to write until I felt inspired…and then write some more. I came to the realization that the only thing that I needed to begin writing my novel was the motivation to write something, anything, even if it wasn’t great, even if it didn’t flow right, even if the plot was not completely solidified, etc.

First, I started with a fiction story about the complicated relationships between women, but found myself getting stuck at different points in the plot, but I remembered what I learned on day one, “writers write”. Determined not to give up, I thought that maybe writing a book of short stories was a challenge more suited to me at the time…still a book, right? I wrote two stories that I thought were decent and began the third story, which was a tale about the disappearance of a teenage girl and how it affected the lives of her close-knit group of friends. Every day the story became longer until one day I woke up to my computer and decided that this was my novel. Without the motivation to keep writing, despite the obstacles, I would have never reached the finish line.